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Wednesday, February 27, 2013

#442: Todd Akin

I suppose most readers are familiar with William Todd Akin.
In any case, he was the U.S. Representative for Missouri's 2nd congressional
district, serving from 2001 to 2013, a leading member of The Family,
and member of the Congressional Prayer Caucus.
Despite the fact that he failed eighth-grade health class, Akin used to sit on
the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

Akin is of course most famous for losing his run for a
Senate seat in 2012. During the campaign, Akin managed to elicit angry
reactions from sane and decent people across the United States when he argued
that there was no need for an exception to abortion laws to account for rape victims
who had become pregnant, since “legitimate rape” cannot result in pregnancy,
because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down",
thus precluding a victim's need for an abortion.” Consequently, abortion providers are “terrorists,” because they sometimes perform abortions on women
who “are not actually pregnant.” (Note the absence of a logical connection between the claims, which is easy to
overlook because of the inherent stupidity of either). In 1987, Akin was arrested for blocking a reproductive services clinic for the usual reasons,
a story that he proudly recounted to a public anti-choice demonstration in
March 2011.

This is perhaps the most perceptive commentary on his statements during the Senate
race.

The statements led to some controversy, and for a while it
looked like the Republican party would withdraw their support for him (in the
end they didn’t), a possibility that his wife Lulli said would be “just like the abuses of King George, when British troops raped
our wives and daughters.” Akin himself said that criticism of him was just like when Muslims behead people (and I recommend taking a second to think about how abysmally stupid that claim
is). Throughout his tribulations Akin retained the support of pseudohistorian David Barton (as well as the usual suspects),
who had earlier compared Akin to biblical figures and likened him to the
Founding Fathers. Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway told Akin to withstand
the controversy that emerged following his comments just likeDavid Koresh withstood the ATF at Waco. (Where the hell do they dig up these people?) AFA spokesman
Bryan Fischer,
never one to let himself be outcrazied, later claimed that Akin`s “completely
accurate” statements were living proof that the Republican Party is not “the
stupid party”.

Although public awareness of Akin may have been bolstered
during the 2012 elections, there was nothing new or surprising about his positions.
Previously, he was most famous for saying that “at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God.” He did, of course,
offer an “apology”:
“My statement during my radio interview was directed at the political movement,
Liberalism, not at any specific individual.” I don’t think that counts as an
apology or in any sense implies that Akin was less than sincere. To ensure that
we all wouldn’t fail to see how crazy he is, he also called the Bible a
“blueprint to tell us about economics” and “about education”.

Akin was predictably outraged when NBC took “under God” out of the pledge of allegiance, finding it
“tremendously corrosive in terms of all of the values and everything that's
made America unique and such a special nation.” Right. Akin must apparently
have learned his history, philosophy, and especially history of ideas, from his supporter David Barton (indeed):
“This is a systematic effort to try to separate our faith and God, which is a
source in our belief in individual liberties, from our country.” Indeed, most
of his reactions to “value”-matters are predictably insane.
He has, for instance, argued that abortion leads to illegal immigration and against any curbing of emissions to prevent global warming by claiming that
he doesn’t want the seasons to stop changing – he claims that the evidence for global warming has appeared thin to him,
and the arguments cited should really show how well equipped he is to address
the issue of scientific evidence for climate change. He has also been opposedto stem cell research because it “would lead to a dark dystopia where people are just numbers.” The
evidence was a story written by his young daughter, a story that also left the
mechanism that initiated the dystopia somewhat mysterious.

Akin appears to have got his reproduction claim from one Jack Willke,
a loyal Romney supporter and a central figure in Romney’s 2008 campaign.

Diagnosis: Abysmally stupid and ragingly insane, which is a
killer combo that seems to have gained him a fair number of votes among the
more reality- and decency-challenged segments of Missouri voters.